Poland’s justice minister has accused the European Union of engaging in a “hybrid war” against Poland through its opposition to the Polish government’s judicial policies. But he pledged to continue “far-reaching reform that will not please EU bureaucrats”.
“Attacks on the reform of the judiciary are part of a hybrid war on the part of the EU, targeting the Polish legal system,” tweeted Zbigniew Ziobro, who as well as being justice minister also serves as prosecutor general and is the leader of a party in Poland’s ruling coalition.
“The EU says that Germans can influence the composition of their Supreme Court, because that is decided by German democracy, that is politicians,” continued Ziobro. “But here [in Poland] it is judges who decide.”
Ataki na reformę sądownictwa to element wojny hybrydowej ze strony UE, wymierzony w polski system prawny. Unia mówi, że Niemcy mogą mieć wpływ na skład tamtejszego Sądu Najwyższego, bo o tym decyduje niemiecka demokracja, czyli politycy. Ale u nas mają decydować sędziowie.
— Zbigniew Ziobro | SP (@ZiobroPL) August 26, 2021
The remarks on Twitter repeated claims Ziobro made in an interview with Catholic radio station Siódma9 this morning, in which he also accused Brussels of mounting a “hybrid war” against Poland.
“What does the EU tell us? That Poles are not allowed to influence changes – real changes in the judiciary – through democratic elections, [unlike], for example, in Germany,” said the justice minister. “The Germans are allowed to, but Poles are not.”
The government has long claimed that Brussels applies double standards against Poland and other eastern EU member states. Warsaw argues that Polish reforms criticised by the EU – such as giving politicians greater influence over choosing judges – simply replicate measures in place in many western countries.
The government’s critics, however, say that the pace, scale and manner of implementation of the Polish government’s judicial policies – parts of which have been found to violate Polish and European law – undermine democracy and the rule of law.
Mikołaj Małecki, a legal scholar at Kraków’s Jagiellonian University, responded to Ziobro’s tweet by saying that “your ‘reform’ of the judiciary is an attack on the constitutional system of the Polish state”.
“You did not and do not have a democratic mandate to change the constitution and the system,” continued Małecki. “We will never agree to your absurd laws that destroy Poland.”
Ziobro and his hard-right United Poland (Solidarna Polska) party have consistently been the most eurosceptic member of Poland’s ruling coalition, which is dominated by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Earlier this year, Ziobro accused the PiS prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, of bowing to the “diktat of Brussels and Berlin” by compromising over a rule-of-law mechanism in the EU budget. His party later rebelled against the government by voting against ratification of the EU’s Covid recovery fund.
While Morawiecki and PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński have recently hinted at complying with a European Court of Justice ruling against Poland’s disciplinary chamber for judges, Ziobro has called instead for a “tough response” against “unlawful interference by EU organs”.
Main image credit: Dawid Zuchowicz / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
